Sup, Monsieur Monet?

On Wednesday we cycled to Monet's house in Giverny. That's right, Monet's house. We had an AMAZING day there! We caught the train from Paris to a little town called Vernon where we hit up the market for some local produce. We then rode to the banks of the Seine and had a swell little picnic. Our picnic consisted of wine, bread, cheese, red pears, pate au lapin (the tastiest pate I've ever eaten!) and raspberry macarons. It was all incredible. Shopping in the market was pretty fun, the people were all very nice to me because I atleast attempted to remember my highschool French...My language skills are pretty embarrassing on the whole though.

After our little picnic we rode to Monet's house. We walked around the gardens for about two hours and also got to walk around his house. The waterlily garden was fabulous...just like it is in the paintings. Photos really can't capture how beautiful it was...

The flower garden was also lovely. Monet arranged the flowers by colour not by type, which I think looks pretty wicked. Thankfully we had both gotten over our colds enough to have a sense of smell too, because it all smelt lovely! On our way back to our bikes we walked through the 'Impressionists Gardens' which were very pretty and free to stroll through...Bronwyn met a frog...it made her very happy...

We also went to the church where Monet and his family are buried...not that exciting though, a graveyard's a graveyard really. Then we rode back to Vernon and returned to Paris.

We went to the Louvre that night, I thought it was a bit shit. It was just TOO big! And impossible to navigate! And really hot! We did have a great time stumbling around laughing at ourselves though. See Bron's blog for further details...

On Tuesday we did a free walking tour of Paris which was great. We had a cool Scottish guide and she told us lots of strange stories. For example, there's a group of men in France whose job it is to protect the French language from the English language. So if something gets invented then come up with a French name...and stuff. Anyway, when the fist iPod was released they weren't allowed to rename it, so they spent four months deciding if it was masculine or feminine. It's masculine. French people are wierd...

She also told us a cool story about King Henri IV. He was much loved by the people and then he got murdered. So the townsfolk captured him, made little incisions in his skin and poured boiling lead into them. Then the next day they skinned him then quartered him...then stomped on his quarters til there was nothing left...French people are also violent...

We walked across the bridge that connects the academy of the arts to The Louvre too...it was disgusting! Couples go there at night at put padlocks all over the bridge then throw the keys into the river to 'lock' their love there forever...there were so many! And one had a pair of panties attached to it! It was amusing though because some people put combination locks on it...incase they decide their love is in fact not eternal? I'm not sure. Also, people think they're locking their love forever, but every September the government comes along and cuts them all off. HA! Take that stupid couples!

We also saw all of the major sites...but who wants to hear about that?

Montmatre was probably my favourite part of Paris. It has a very cool village-y vibe and is just very pretty. We went to the house where Vincent Van Gogh used to live which got us very excited to go to the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam! We saw Picasso's old studio, a bunch of cool statues and cute little pictures of Space Invaders hidden in trees and the Sacre Coeur, which was gorgeous. We also found out that in Paris graffiti is considered to be a form of art, so they don't clean it off. We saw paintings of the same girl all over a shopfront and there was another cool story behind them...this chick got dumped by her boyfriend and he said 'I never want to see you again' and crushed her. So, to get her revenge, she painted herself all over his house, his favourite bars and restaurants and the art gallery that he worked in (which is where we were). Yay for girl power...or maybe she's also crazy...

We also these hilarious movie posters all over the city...The Step Up one was our favourite!

Love Courts <3